Sunday, December 9, 2012

NBA 2K13 Roster Analysis 12/8/12

2K Sports appears to have heard the complaints of the fans (and possibly this blog) as they released another NBA 2K13 roster update after only three days (the previous roster took 18 days). Unfortunately, as with all things 2K, it seems everytime they take a step forward they take two steps back.

------------------------------------------------------PLAYER EDITS
15 players were edited over the course of three days, a much better showing than the previous roster's 14 in 18. In the 11/17 roster there were 16 player edits, so 15 seems to be the average we should expect from 2K regardless of time gap.

However, 5 of those edits were minor as only 1-2 attributes were edited for those players (more or less cleaning up obvious errors in a specific attribute). There is also no hope in sight for role players and small-market teams long-underrated to get their due, as 2K once again only focused on popular players.

Bledsoe's +14 Overall makes this the biggest rating edit NBA 2K has ever given out in it's 12 year history.

The shot rating changes were all deserved. Bledsoe has literally doubled his Player Efficiency Rating which is practically unheard of, and he should be the favorite for Most Improved Player award.

Improvements to Bledsoe's ball handling and athleticism were all required, as explosive would be the best way to define his playstyle.

Block and Steal rating upgrades were badly needed as they were actually underrated based on last season's performance.

Bledsoe's rebound ratings are a bit iffy. His offensive rebounding definitely needed to go up, but his defensive rebounding has been pretty average for a PG and didn't need to move from where it was.

Bledsoe's Defensive Awareness definitely needed to go up as he's been one of the league's best PGs on that end.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
Bledsoe's Offensive Rebounding is actually still underrated, though I'm guessing 2K compensated with his defensive rebounding as they didn't want to raise it too far. It's a pity though, since Bledsoe is a clearly better offensive rebounder than many of the bigger forwards who they do give high ratings to.
I was surprised Bledsoe's Offensive Awareness only went up 3 points. He is averaging 19 points per 36 minutes compared to 10 points over his previous two seasons. That should definitely go up as his monster season continues.

There was absolutely no reason for Conley's Inside, Close, or Medium shot ratings to go up.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
Conley's steal rate has risen every season of his career, and is currently sitting at 4.1% which is Chris Paul territory.
Conley has also been one of the league's most durable players, missing only 7 games over the prior three seasons, but only has 70 Durability rating.

There was no reason to improve Felton's Inside or Med shot as he isn't performing any differently than last season... especially after last night's 9-30 effort (8-27 on twos). It's only his 3pt shooting that has been much improved.
Felton's FT dropping was based on a measly 26 shot sample. He went 8-9 last night and raised his shooting percentage above where he's now rated. This is why it's stupid to drastically adjust FT rating so early in the year.

2K once again ignored their own rebound scale as Howard deserves around 80 OffReb and 85 DefReb (rather than 91 and 82 respectively).
I'm not sure what Howard did to deserve an Offensive Awareness decrease, given that he is still averaging 19 points while sharing shots with Kobe Bryant.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
I have never understood why Howard's always had a low "Shoot In Traffic" rating (currently 80, which is the highest it's been since he entered the league), as he gets clobbered anytime he touches the ball. Teammate Pau Gasol for example has 79 and there is a stark contrast between the amount of contested shots and defensive coverage the two receive.

It would appear that 2K saw my previous analysis of Gasol and made additional changes (he hasn't played any games over the last three days, so what else did they have to go off to inspire these changes?). I pointed out in my 12/5 roster analysis that Gasol's Close/Fade/Hook, Rebounding, Offensive Awareness, and Consistency ratings were in need of a decrease and that's exactly what they got.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
Gasol's 70 Hustle rating seems a bit high for a player whose primary criticism is not playing hard every night (not to mention lumbering 7 footers don't exactly dive on the floor very much).

Gasol has an 80 block rating, but hasn't deserved a rating that high since the 2007 season, his last full year with the Grizzlies. He posted 2.6 BLK% last year and that's exactly where he is right now in 2013.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
Oh god, where to begin? For starters, Fisher's 3pt rating (86) clearly ignores how poorly he shot the three ball last season. Fisher's awareness ratings are extremely high (78 Offense, 79 Defense) for a player who hasn't been close to effective at either in five years.
The early results with Fisher starting at PG for the Mavericks have been nothing short of disastrous - he's shooting 27% from the field while not contributing much in any other area. He was never a PG who could run a team and that's why he stuck with the Triangle offense for so long.

That change was grossly overdue as Mayo has quickly transitioned from disappointing sixth man to blossoming star SG. This change came BEFORE he dropped a career high 40 points on the Rockets last night.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
Mayo's 3pt rating has only gone up 3 points since the start of the season (85 from 82), and should go up even further than that as he's kept up his absurdly good 3pt shooting. Mayo has also improved his Close shot substantially and will deserve a higher rating soon (currently 72).

Kaman makes the second Maverick whose only rating change was a decrease to his Consistency rating. As usual, 2K is "consistent" in their laziness.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
Kaman's shot ratings are all out of date and reflect the 2011 season (they are one of few that 2K never updated for NBA 2K13). 92 Close rating in particular does not reflect last season's production, but DOES reflect this season's. Should Kaman continue to drop buckets (this is easily the most efficient season of his career), the rating will cease to be bad. Sometimes 2K gets lucky like that.

Blatche's mid-range shot was grossly overrated based on last season's numbers. While his current shooting percentage would actually merit an 88 rating, he only shot 34% in 2011 so I don't believe that will sustain.
Blatche has been an offensive rebounding monster playing exclusively at center (rather than mostly PF in the past). If he keeps it up he'll deserve an even higher ORB rating.
Blatche is in the middle of a career year, rebounding nicely from the worst season of his career. I have to wonder if the Wizards regret using the amnesty clause on him this past summer.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
It's been years since Blatche has deserved anywhere close to 75 Block rating.

As with most players who somehow had ridiculously high Medium shot ratings (Andray Blatche is another), Bargnani's rating dropped not because he got worse, but because he was never that good at it to begin with.
Bargnani's rebounding deserved to drop, but the trouble is it was already grossly overrated to begin with and still is. Going by 2K's own defensive rebounding scales, his production last year warrants low-mid 60s while his current production merits low 50s... yet he sits pretty with a 70 rating for a player known to be an egregiously poor rebounder.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
Bargnani's offensive rebound rating has always been much higher than his actual production.
Bargnani's block rating is absurdly overrated. His block rate has been under 2% for three seasons (1.5, 1.2, 1.7 from 2011-13) yet he has 70 block rating!

Raptors fans have been complaining about Valanciunas' rating since the beginning of the season when it was clear he would start for the team. 2K rectified their mistake - now it's time to see if they'll do the same to fellow rookie centers Andre Drummond and Meyers Leonard.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
I don't know why Valanciunas' Medium shot went up as much as it did, but it should go down soon as he's only hit 5 shots in 20 games and doesn't shoot a high percentage (it is not part of his game yet). As with all rookies getting significant playing time, a close eye should be kept on the entirety of his production.

2K only made this tweak so they could get Lin to a specific overall rating (his 3pt% actually went up slightly over the last 3 days). Since the edit was the definition of minimal, my prior commentary still applies...

It's been a tale of two seasons for Lin, as his last season's impressive close range game has seemingly evaporated. He came into the season hurting, and there's no way he can be this bad all season when you look at last season's production.

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
Lin has about 1800 minutes of NBA experience under his belt, so keep watching those shooting percentages to see how they balance out. The rest of his production has primarily held steady.

Beasley has shot the ball poorly this season, but in the case of his Close shot, it was badly overrated to begin with and his current rating is more in line with last season's production (and thus not actually reflecting this season yet).

FUTURE ADJUSTMENTS
It's a bit odd to see Beasley's shot ratings drop so precipitously, yet see no change made to his absurdly high 86 Offensive Awareness or 80 Consistency. Beasley has regressed each season of his career and hasn't deserved such ratings since his once promising NCAA days.

INCORRECT INJURIES
Victor Claver (62/SF, Trail Blazers) is not injured. He was assigned to the D-League on 12/7.

------------------------------------------------------

MISSING PLAYERS

The missing player list is down to 12. Unfortunately, aside from James White (veteran w/ guaranteed contract who used to be in 2K and even has his own dunk package), and possibly Darius Johnson-Odom and Kevin Murphy (second round picks), I don't anticipate 2K adding anymore of these players.

Lance Thomas
64 Overall (PF/SF) - Hornets

Thomas was only added to get Eric Gordon off the team's active roster (replacing the waived Matt Carroll).

It's worth noting that Cory Higgins, who was missing until the 12/5 roster, was waived today. The Bobcats signed PF Jeff Adrien to take his place. Adrien is thankfully already in the game's free agent pool.

Only 7 lineups are incorrect now, down from 13 in the last update. However 5 of those lineups were incorrect dating back to the 12/5 roster, and two of them incorrect since 11/17. The Spurs lineup is particularly mind-boggling.

As I pointed out December 5th, the Hawks proper starting lineup is DeShawn Stevenson at SG, Kyle Korver at SF, Josh Smith at PF, and Al Horford at C. Korver has missed the last few games due to injury and the birth of his child, and Devin Harris has started in his place (NOT Zaza Pachulia with Stevenson at SG).

As I pointed out November 17th, Kawhi Leonard hasn't played since November 15th due to injury, but isn't even classified as an injured player. Gary Neal has been starting in Leonard's place at SG, with Green sliding over to SF, and DeJuan Blair replaced Boris Diaw in the starting lineup.

SUMMARY
2K did well to rebound from last roster's criticisms in a hurry, but reincorporating injuries is nothing short of a disaster from a roster editing standpoint. There is no longer any point to downloading 2K's roster for personal use, and they are solely for online play now.

3 comments:

Hey Rashidi - Just curious, are you planning on posting a list of your player ratings for 2k13 like you did back in March for 2k12? If so are you just waiting for 2k to add all missing players or something? Keep up the good work!

I have a list but would have not written up file details as of yet. The list is actually much more updated than what is currently reflected in my roster, as 2K's dreaded auto-save deleted my progress and I had to start over.